Hospitals checking patients' credit reports

[PA Democrat]

Hospitals increasingly are checking patients' credit reports or using scoring that rates ability to pay. Just walking into a hospital to request treatment for which you'll owe a portion of the bill gives a hospital permission to obtain a credit score or report, according to Jennifer Coxwell, who manages health-care relationships for credit report giant Equifax.

Equifax says use of its Payment Predictor and related systems is rapidly gaining favor with hospitals. Coxwell says the system can benefit patients by helping hospitals identify those who may qualify for financial assistance. But it also allows hospitals to determine whether patients have any available credit on existing credit cards. Thus they can try to persuade them to put the charges on their cards.

Jim Bentley, a senior vice president of the American Hospital Association, says his group recommends that hospitals get a patient's permission or wait until billing has been done before checking credit reports. He also says, "As patients are obligated to pay more out of pocket under Health Savings Accounts and higher deductibles, we all have to do our best to make sure patients understand the terms if they are offered commercial credit."

If you finance medical bills on a credit card, you lose leverage to negotiate payments directly with health-care providers, who may charge self-paying patients up to five times more.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/credit-loan/cr-investigates-medical-debt/hospitals-check-credit-reports/medical-debt-hospitals-check-credit-reports.htm

[onehandle]

1. Nationalize the health insurance companies and banks.

Problem solved.

[Soylent Brice]

3. yup.

[Deja Q]

5. Simplistic, but if corporations won't pay good money for good work, then things have to change.

No incentive to do good work for money, just being "good enough", doing things just as cheaply as possible... no care, no pride... no nothing.

The incident that caused the downturn is still up for debate, but with the present situation, how to get people to turn around and end the vicious circle is more important than how the problem was caused.

[PA Democrat]

7. I'd be happy with universal single payer health care and regulating banks.

The couple in this story was threatened by the hospital that if they did not let them charge a high interest credit card for $13,000 (the credit limit on the card that had a $0 balance), they would go after their house and freeze their bank accounts.

The vultures saw a $13,000 credit limit and disregarded the fact that the husband had to quit his job due to his illness and the family was trying to live off the the wife's $18,000 a year income. No discussion about whether the couple would qualify for help under the hospital's charity-care program, they immediately resort to financial extortion.

[RC]

10. North Dakota has a State Bank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_North_Dakota

The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America—what Republicans might call an idiosyncratic bastion of socialism. It also earned a record profit last year even as its private-sector corollaries lost billions. To be sure, it owes some of its unusual success to North Dakota’s well-insulated economy, which is heavy on agricultural staples and light on housing speculation. But that hasn’t stopped out-of-state politicos from beating a path to chilly Bismarck in search of advice. Could opening state-owned banks across America get us out of the financial crisis? It certainly might help, says Ellen Brown, author of the book, Web of Debt, who writes that the Bank of North Dakota, with its $4 billion under management, has avoided the credit freeze by “creating its own credit, leading the nation in establishing state economic sovereignty.” Mother Jones spoke with the Bank of North Dakota’s president, Eric Hardmeyer.

>MORE<
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation%E2%80%99s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street

[MercutioATC]

14. And real estate!

We all have a RIGHT to have a home!

[madaboutharry]

2. Hospital corporations are blood sucking bean counters who

are out to fuck you every way they can. They care nothing about your health.

I also see it as a way of developing seperate treatment courses for different patients, depending on their ability to pay.

Hospitals in this country are immoral.

[1monster]

17. Boy, I'll say. A hospital once charged us over $7,000 for pharmaceuticals that the insurance

company refused to pay.

The hospital offered us a deal. If we paid $1,000, they would write off the rest.

I got an itemized statement of the drugs and took it to a friend who is a pharmacist and asked him whether I should try to make the insurance company pay or if I should take the deal.

He glancaed over the itemized statement and laughed. "Take the deal," he told me. "There is no way any insurance company will pay this. See this drug here," he pointed. "I can get you 2,000 of that for what they charged you for one."

I went back to the hospital accounts receivable department and told the rep there what the pharmacist told me.

"We can charge you whatever we want," she answered. "There are no laws against it."

So I ended up paying $1,000 more for drugs already paid for in full by my insurance company.

[theoldman]

4. Nothing new, the first thing a hospital does is check to see if you have deep pockets.

They then create a bill to match those pockets. If you have a good insurance company you get a high bill. If you are on an HMO like me, the bill is much lower because they know they will not collect much.

[ColbertWatcher]

6. And who says the American health "care" system isn't corrupted by money? k+r, n/t

[PA Democrat]

8. I was shocked when I found out that when my health insurance refused

to pay for something they claimed was a "preexisting condition" I was expected to pay the full blown no discounts price. I fought the insurance company, they agreed to pay and the hospitals, doctors, and lab and settled for about 40% of the amount I would have been expected to pay.

According to the article, if you let the hospital charge your credit card, you pretty much lose any bargaining power you would have had to negotiate on the cost.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. It's almost as if every cog in the financial industry somehow got an advantage. n/t

[Daphne08]

9. Scandalous. I don't know what else to think or say. n/t

[girl gone mad]

11. That last sentence is so important. Everyone who pays out of pocket..

needs to know that hospital bills are negotiable. If you have to self-pay for an elective procedure, make sure you negotiate in advance and get any agreements in writing. Haggling after treatment is trickier, but it can be done.

[ejpoeta]

12. wow. just.... wow.

[TexasObserver]

13. First they biopsy your insurance, then your credit, then your health problem!

Priorities!!

[Echo In Light]

16. All American VALUES & PRIORITIE$

[newtothegame]

18. No surprise here; they have accounts payable like everyone else. n/t

If anything, they are more likely to check credit reports than other industries because their payment cycle is so messed up (very little in cash, can be months before government actually pays for service performed). They can less afford to have non-payers than just about any industry.

ed for sp

[WI_DEM]

19. You bet they do. You'll never believe on applicatons for charity care how many people lie

about there income and assets.

[PA Democrat]

21. According to the article, the family HAD qualified for free care at another hospital

but the ambulance took the man to a for-profit hospital because he was in critical condition. The family of 4 was living on the wife's $18,000 a year salary after the husband had become too ill to work.

The for-profit hospital didn't make any attempt to get the family enrolled in a charity program but instead threatened to freeze their bank accounts and go after their home if they refused to allow them to max out a high int erst rate credit card ($13,000 available credit).

The family is not the bad guy in this story.

[backtoblue]

20. I think there should be some privacy laws for credit-checking.

It's private financial information that shouldn't be handed out without a waiver being signed by the person being checked.

It's also bullshit that any bank, potential employer, hospital, or other "higher class" can get YOUR personal financial info, but you CANNOT without paying fees.